Why did you dissuade me from going with him ?" "One man is enough to right his own wrong," said the taller and older personage; "we venture our lives for him in coming thus far on such an errand." "You are but a craven after all, Craigengelt," answered the younger, "and that's what many folk have thought you before now." "But what none has dared to tell me," said Craigengelt, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword; "and, but that I hold a hasty man no better than a fool, I would----" he paused for his companion's answer.
"WOULD you ?" said the other, coolly; "and why do you not then ?" Craigengelt drew his cutlass an inch or two, and then returned it with violence into the scabbard--"Because there is a deeper stake to be played for than the lives of twenty hare-brained gowks like you." "You are right there," said his companion, "for it if were not that these forfeitures, and that last fine that the old driveller Turntippet is gaping for, and which, I dare say, is laid on by this time, have fairly driven me out of house and home, I were a coxcomb and a cuckoo to boot to trust your fair promises of getting me a commission in the Irish brigade.

What have I to do with the Irish brigade?
I am a plain Scotchman, as my father was before me; and my grand-aunt, Lady Girnington, cannot live for ever." "Ay, Bucklaw," observed Craigengelt, "but she may live for many a long day; and for your father, he had land and living, kept himself close from wadsetters and money-lenders, paid each man his due, and lived on his own." "And whose fault is it that I have not done so too ?" said Bucklaw--"whose but the devil's and yours, and such-like as you, that have led me to the far end of a fair estate?
And now I shall be obliged, I suppose, to shelter and shift about like yourself: live one week upon a line of secret intelligence from Saint Germains; another upon a report of a rising in the Highlands; get my breakfast and morning draught of sack from old Jacobite ladies, and give them locks of my old wig for the Chevalier's hair; second my friend in his quarrel till he comes to the field, and then flinch from him lest so important a political agent should perish from the way.

All this I must do for bread, besides calling myself a captain!" "You think you are making a fine speech now," said Craigengelt, "and showing much wit at my expense.

Is starving or hanging better than the life I am obliged to lead, because the present fortunes of the king cannot sufficiently support his envoys ?" "Starving is honester, Craigengelt, and hanging is like to be the end on't.

But what you mean to make of this poor fellow Ravenswood, I know not.